


Moment

by kiriya



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Banter, F/M, Friendship, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6102360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiriya/pseuds/kiriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike's antagonistic(?) banter provides Buffy some brief reprieve from the chaos of her life in Season 5, and she contemplates his ambiguity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moment

Buffy stalked the cemetery, trusty stake in hand, ready to do her duty sacred duty fighting the forces of darkness. Finally. She had been under so much stress lately, she craved the release of a good slay. Too often, she had left the patrolling to her friends and her sweet, reliable boyfriend,who had not been so reliable as of late. Xander complained that Riley was a no-show, and when she tried to bring it up with him, he just turned it back around on her making her feel like the World's Worst Girlfriend, in his annoying, passive-aggressive way. There was the first thing on Buffy's long list of problems. Not only did she have to play nurse to her sick mother 24/7, but also her to boyfriends bruised ego, which wasn't as sexy as it sounded.  
  
  
On top of that, the Slayer had to protect her bratty kid sister (who, surprise! Wasn't really her bratty kid sister but a mystical key older in time itself that unlocks the doors between the dimensions), from some psycho, brain-sucking super skank with bad roots, who wiped the floor during their first and last fight. She couldn't afford to get rusty. And, of course, there was college. Just when she thought she was getting the hang of this whole education thing! Ever since Mom got sick, Buffy had been attending class less and less. The ever-growing pile of make-up work Willow had brought her sat on her dresser, laughing at her. Every time cracked open a textbook to catch up on the reading, her mind would wander, only to discover for the last ten minutes she hadn't been reading at all. Her eyes had simply been scanning the page, not processing what they said, and every time Buffy seemed to get a bit of work done, Willow would come around with twice as much to compensate. She had too many irons in the fire.  
  
"Hello, Love," said a whole another sets of problems, accompanied by her slayer sense screaming at her that she was in the presence of a master vampire. "Nice evening were having."  
  
  
"Spike. Now my night is complete." Buffy replied, lips curled in a self-deprecating smile. As if it ever really began. Why could she never find badness when she wanted to, but when she wasn't looking, the badness found her? She turned to face the perpetual pain in her ass, arms crossed over her chest. "I was just looking for something whose ass I could kick."  
  
"Need me to work off some tension, do you?" Spike asked. His voice oozed innuendo and he was doing that stupid sexy thing with his tongue.  
  
"Pig." Buffy sneered. After a moment, she frowned at her lack of ingenuity. Okay, her sass was definitely suffering from all the stress she was under.  
  
  
"Oh, I'm wounded," He said, feigning hurt and clutching at his heart. "That all you can come up with? I'm disappointed in you, love. I look forward to listening to your cute little quips, like Sir Benedick and precious his lady love Beatrice.-  
  
"Who?" Buffy interjected.  
  
  
Spike scrutinized her features for any hints of sarcasm, then sneered in derision when he realized her sincerity.  
  
  
"Hello, Shakespeare? Where's that pricey university education of yours going, in one ear and out the other?"  
  
_As of late, yes_.  
  
She just pulled a Riley, and turned it back on him. "How do you know Shakespeare?"  
  
"I'll have you know I was a scholar in my day, just as sharp as Tweed Diapers. Went to Cambridge and everything, had a few fancy degrees to prove it." "Really? You?" Buffy said, incredulous. She smirked as her imagination wandered. Spike in fancy Victorian clothing, with a quill and ink like in Harry Potter, and surrounded by dusty old tomes like the ones in Giles' apartment. "What happened to _I've always been bad, baby_?"  
  
Spike gagged. "First, don't try to imitate me. Your accent is atrocious. Second, I lied. I was the biggest bleedin' nance. Wore glasses, had stupid, poofy hair, made my head look like poodles arse."  
  
"I'm sure it couldn't be any worse than the two-decades-out-of-style look you have now, _Mr. Pratt_." Buffy teased him, emphasizing the surname Spike revealed to her when she demanded he give her a married name when they were under Willows Will-be-done spell. "Doesn't that mean idiot in British?"  
  
"Looks like you didn't do that forgetting spell after all, did you _Mrs. Pratt_?" Spike said, waggling his eyebrows at her. "'Least I didn't sport a ponytail like your ex-honey."  
  
Buffy giggled at the imagery, feeling lighter than she had in lifetimes. Like for once, she could shrug, and the world she carried on her shoulders wouldn't come crashing down. In the companionship of her mortal enemy. And that was her Spike problem in a nutshell. Buffy hated him. Spike hated her. When he wasnt trying to execute some botched plan to kill her, he was a constant pain in her ass, insulting her, her friends, and her choice in boyfriends. In turn, she would break his nose... So why was he acting like they were best buddies, revealing all the embarrassing details about the man whose corpse he animated? She didn't know what to make of him. One moment, he promising to give her the death she desperately craved, then in the heat of the moment, he was trying to kiss her. He'd show up on her back porch with a gun in his hand, then sit beside her and comforted her while she cried. Spike didn't even push Buffy when she said she didn't want to talk about it. Just patted her shoulder awkwardly and was there for her when she cried. She could sense him following her on patrol, caught glimpses of his white hair in the shadows while she fought. Her Slayer-y senses tingled when she went to bed at night, and when she woke up in the morning, her lawn would littered in cigarettes butts.  
  
Maybe it was all part of some plan to kill her. Maybe he hoped flicking those cigarette butts into her lawn would make her house catch fire and she'd die in her sleep. That sounded like exactly like the kinda lame plan Spike would have.  
  
"Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"Made you laugh, didn't I?" Spike said, icy blue eyes sparkling with sincerity and pale lips curled into a genuine smile. "You look like you can use more of those."  
  
He wasn't wrong. Boy troubles, sick mom, bratty not-sister, a new baddie, impending apocalypse, and the fate of the world resting on her shoulders, again, and the weird occasional niceness/stalk-ery-ness of the peroxide pain in her ass. Stir well, set to 350, and well-ah! The perfect recipe for a Bumped Buffy.  
  
Ugh, and he's doing that sexy head tilt thing.  
  
"You just look so tense," Spike continued, "Did the last of those Initiative drugs finally ware off? Can your toy solider not wind-up-and-go like he used to? Can't keep you satisfied, makes you crave a good spot of violence to meet your womanly needs? Bet the thrill of the kill gets you off, you dirty little - "  
  
Buffy broke his nose again. The moment between them was gone, and they were enemies again. His smile was insufferable and smug, and that sincere look before was impossible to place on that smug face, that could make her do nothing but hate him.  
  
She easily completely forget it had ever happened.

 


End file.
